You've reached your article limit

Subscribe now to continue reading the Arkansas Times

U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton is always so sure of himself, you might even think he was telling the truth. But check the record first.

I've been noting Cotton's obstruction of confirmation to five vacancies on the federal court of claims, obstruction that seems to play into the interests of a former employer and campaign contributor.

Cotton has claimed data shows the court has enough judges. Now comes CQ Roll Call with a lawyer disputing Cotton's information. Lewis Weiner, former leader of the court of claims bar association, says Cotton is using the wrong statistics.

Wiener said that Cotton’s chart includes the wrong kind of cases, which magnified the apparent drop of work pending before the court. Wiener said the caseload has generally been increasing under his count.

The number of cases steadily decreased while the court was functioning with its normal complement of 16 judicial officers, but has actually been increasing over the last two years while the court has been short-staffed, Wiener said.

“While statistics can be informative,” Wiener wrote, the work “cannot be simply captured by pending case statistics.”

Cotton exercised a single senator's power to block unanimous consent to the nominations, though they have twice been approved by the Judiciary Committee, once when led by Republicans.

Politifact has labeled "false" how Cotton has characterized President Obama's position on negotiations with Iran on a nuclear program. No, he didn't vow to put Iran totally out of the nuclear business, Politifact concludes, rather he said he hoped to produce a treaty was aimed at blocking nuclear weapons.